photo by: LMH Health

Former LMH Health CFO Mike Rogers is pictured alongside the hospital's main campus at 325 Maine St. Rogers was removed from his role in late October after LMH Health officials discovered that he did not disclose that he was a convicted felon and had legally changed his name during the hiring process.

In a statement Wednesday afternoon, LMH Health announced that it’s already made several changes — and will make more in the coming months — in the wake of an analysis examining how the hospital’s former CFO was hired despite having failed to disclose that he was a convicted felon and had legally changed his name in the past year.

As the Journal-World reported, Mike Rogers, who served as LMH Health’s top financial executive for about a month, left the position after those details came to light in late October. The hospital later said that Rogers took “elaborate steps to conceal his true work history and criminal record” and that it was launching an investigation into the matter. Under his given name of Michael Patrick Brunton, Rogers had been convicted of a mail fraud felony in 2005 and two years later was arrested for using hospital credit cards illegally and trying to get money out of administrators at a hospital in Louisiana where he was employed as the CFO.

LMH Health launched an internal process to identify gaps that allowed that fraudulent information to escape identification, the statement reads, which a hospital spokesperson has previously referred to as a “root cause analysis.” The statement says that while the report won’t be made public since it contains records protected by state statute, LMH Health is still committed to placing “a strong emphasis on candor, trust and accountability.”

“To that end, we want our staff and the community to know we are making process improvements as a result of our findings,” the statement reads. “This was a very concerning situation, yet because it was caught quickly, and because of existing security protocol, it posed no risk to patient safety or to our finances.”

What LMH Health is disclosing, though, are some of the actions it’s taking in light of the report’s findings. Some relate to communication; the statement notes that the hospital plans to “reduce communication gaps through a formalized system with checks and balances and ensure a single point of contact for hiring information.”

Others, unsurprisingly, are related to the application process. The statement notes that in addition to third-party online application portals, applicants will also be asked to submit a formal resume along with answers to screening questions moving forward. It’s not clear from the statement what level of screening, if any, applicants were subject to until now.

Finally, the statement says the hospital plans to use primary source verification and other direct methods for required elements of the position under consideration, and will also extend the timeframe for background checks beyond industry standards for key positions.

Notably, Wednesday’s statement includes some remarks made by Pat Miller, the chair of the hospital’s Board of Trustees, at the Nov. 29 board meeting, which until now had not been circulated publicly since the group spoke about the issue in executive session. Miller asserted the importance of being transparent about errors like this and taking appropriate action to ensure they don’t happen again.

Miller also implied that LMH Health was not alone in having been duped by Rogers in 2023.

“Apparently, LMH Health was not the first hospital that hired and quickly fired Mr. Rogers this calendar year,” Miller said at the meeting. “Had the other hospital disclosed its experience, this person would have been easily excluded during LMH’s CFO search process.”

Wednesday’s statement doesn’t mention this other hospital by name, though, and doesn’t elaborate further on the details of Rogers’ brief employment there.